


Fairly Local

by doctorpunx



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fake AH Crew, M/M, Multi, Ray before the Fake AH Crew, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-05-03 07:28:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5282084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorpunx/pseuds/doctorpunx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray Narvaez Jr. is used to traveling alone, and eating alone, and laughing alone. It isn't a tragic loneliness, nor is it a pitiful silence, but more so a warmth. Being alone is like sitting in your favorite chair with your face turned towards the sun, it's just comforting. Ray Narvaez Jr. is content. He loves the hot coast of California & the wispy colder coast of Maryland. He is content, content until he isn't. Until loneliness isn't light and freeing, but constricting and confining. This is the story of how Ray meets the six people that fuck up his life, and inevitably change it for the better. Or worse. Who knows?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

    The thing about traveling alone was that it was a skill mastered quite quickly, and without trying too hard; it just came. Like the swelling of the ocean in between the solstices, Ray too ebbed and flowed, in and out of a social consciousness. Loneliness cannot be expressed discursively. A simple explanation swells towards it's bursting point, the malice that break the boy is clenched teeth, weeping wounds and the sinking feeling that follows without doubt. He isn't sure where these feelings come from (he doesn't have much to be sad about.) or what it's about; but the fear that sings it's head off in the dark, white-eyed pallor, the sweet sadness, rage and vomiting, they were only symptoms.

  Symptoms of a larger sickness that dwelled in between the aching ribs that have been broken more than once, but he knows that the pain that's still evident isn't physical. It's a mental ache, a heavy burden upon thin and weak shoulders. Ray liked to think that he was _fine_ on his own, but that was only due to the inability to strive for anything better. He knew he was able to reach out and grab the thin thread of friendship, but it wasn't often that he tried; it was hard. _Existing_ itself was a incredibly difficult, seeing as the kid technically didn't exist at all.

  But that was the thing about traveling across America, wasn't it? You seen weird shit, and some of it can't even be told from paper. Sometimes it's just a feeling that passes through him when he travels through the desert to New Mexico; it's the ten hours of deep red desert that makes him feel small enough to disappear, small enough to fly away on the wind. That's some poetic bullshit right there, he's gotta remember to write that down later (he won't, not after passing by an empty rest stop; iridescent under the moon, tables set up with salt & pepper shakers, but empty. He won't forget the empty hat stand with one lonely hat, simply hand embroidered ** _DOWN WITH BUSH_ ** on the front and back. Ray snags it so nobody can and stuffs it inside his pack haphazardly).

  By the time he's back on the road, after searching the rest of the place, he wonders why there's a feeling of slight displacement. Like he stepped into some creepy parallel pocket universe that only existed on another plane of semi-existance, and not a gas station that went bankrupt before Ray was even born. But that didn't matter, not really, in the grand scheme of things.

  The desert eventually stretches until it can no longer, until the kid realizes that the wheels of his Ducati have been worn down and there's a hole; the sparks that greet him from the pavement aren't actually a warning, but a clear wake up call: _stop, get some new tires you broke asshole_. Ray has to admit that he's been avoiding this part, finding help. Sure, he could fix the problem himself. He could steal a tire that (probably) fit, pull apart the spokes for fun and just fuck around for a few hours---- but it's boring. And the thought of people make him queasy.

  Does he _have_ to?

 

* * *

 

 

 Before Ray makes the move to stop in on some dead-beat city that went by Los Santos, he fills up on fruit from a stand just off the coast of Hermosa Beach; it practically bursts in his mouth, each pale little plum disappearing down his gullet. He didn't even like regular plums, but something about the bored girl working there has him buying a few just to try--- just for fun. They're fucking _delicious_.

  The kid lazily sprawls out in the sun beside the bike and chows down, slurping, biting, chomping until every single plum is gone. Ray doesn't hesitate to buy more, he's always been sort of impulsive, and he ends up eating those too, just because he _can_. But just because he can, doesn't mean it's a particularly smart idea to actually clear out the girl's stock and fill himself up. It was simply the way he leads his life, or maybe he imagined it to be so, there was something freeing about being able to make his own decisions.

  These ideas, some smart and others not so smart, often ended up in Ray's heaping wallet: no money was laid to rest inside, protected and shielded from any pickpockets, but scrap pieces of paper. Whatever he could find, ends of newspapers and the sort, sometimes even labels of bottles that he's pulled off. He just wanted to remember the weird shit he came across, often queer passages scrawled messily, but still readable for his own eyes: like the blackbirds that he's met in every single state, all subtly unique, never the same. He lists the golden plumage of one, and the deep red eyes of another. Or the lizards. Oh boy, the _lizards_ ; Ray had once found a very large amount of lizards in Arizona, once.

  Long story short, they were doing pushups. Well, what looked like pushups. He spent an entire day in that particular place, eyeing up the tiny lizards in hope of finding out any trade secrets. As it turns out, they smoked Ray in a pushup contest. _All_ of them beat him, he didn't even stand a _chance_. He folds up a tiny piece of paper with a single burr in it, just after wrestling it off of his hoodie and sticks it in his wallet too, just because it annoyed the fuck out of him. Sure, the pictures on his phone were just as good as any crappy piece of paper, but his phone died a lot.

 So when the Puerto Rican finishes each plum from the basket, the sticker from the fruit stand goes straight into his wallet alongside a few fake ID's.

 Ray decides to light a garbage can on fire, for a little fun. But when the girl from the fruit stand comes rushing out from behind her little hut, gasping and wide eyed, he can't help but light _that_ on fire too. He feels a great heat swell in his chest, a sense of pride as he lights the little wicker booth on fire while the girl runs for water towards the gas station, already gone as she screams after him.

 

 


	2. A little bit blue around the edges.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray runs into two idiots.   
> Michael and Gavin run into a starving homeless kid.

Ray's life often felt muted, fuzzy around the edges, like he'd just put his glasses on after a shower (as rare as those were, however.). Slightly dehydrated and eating refried beans beans out of a can in an old abandoned warehouse meant he was getting low on a few things, mainly money. _And weed_. A heady heat fills the air, not unlike any heat he's really known. He's a drifter at heart but even Ray misses the cold, down cast days of New York;  it leads him to lie on the cold concrete floor of the empty shell of that warehouse, purple hoodie thrown haphazardly over his backpack, cheek pressed flat and glasses hanging off his face.

He's got to admit:  this isn't how he thought his life would be. Nearly starving, high off his shit and eating beans that _certainly do not_ have a little mold on them.

But that's the point, isn't it? No plan, no restrains. Ray Narvaez Jr. was a free man, and that's how he _liked_ it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 He hears them before he sees them. The uncomfortable woozy flip in his stomach is what wakes him up first, slowly gurgling and groaning for food that's been long gone. It hurts, sometimes. To be _that_ hungry, fingers clenched around his hoodie that's brought to his abdomen to stave off the feeling. Ray finds that if he presses a fist to his stomach hard enough? It fools his stomach into thinking it's full, painfully so. 

It becomes more and more common that Ray spends his days in silence, most void, partially in thought. Ray tended to avoid those days, thinking in an unavoidable silence; that's what the weed is for, he guesses. He understands the world and his own place in it.

He understood nothing. The world and his place in it were nothing and he understood that, lived by that actually. He didn't mind being alone, he'd gotten used to it long before it was a worry of his.

* * *

 

 

"Gavin, you stupid fuck ---- .... No, _there's no fucking rats!_ Get in here, we need to set up your shit." _This_ is the voice that has Ray running almost immediately, scrambling for his glasses, scrambling to find purchase against _anything_ that would help hide his ass. The Puerto Rican immediately makes for an old vespa that lies broken and ugly against a smashed up television; he's just small enough to hide behind both, although the fact that his sneaker peaks out probably wasn't smart.

"S' what you said last time, innit?"

"Yeah, but last time you were a fucking idiot. Not my fault."

The banter that fills the empty space is tediously loud, following by a squawk and some giggles between the two.

Ray sneaks a peek. Two men stand with a few bags under their arms, bumping and grinning as they amble along the doorway. They're not unlike many of the people Ray's seen from afar, although the accent of the taller is a bit disorientating. The accent of the smaller is familiar, though it's a bit harder to place. _Imagine what you may think a criminal looks like._

They were quite unlike many of the other criminals Ray's seen and met, but the gist is the same: he can spot a crook from a fucking mile away. He should get his rifle out, get a better look at Curly and Moe.

"Oi, look --- somebody's been shackin' up, Michael. Backpack 'ere. " Gavin (Ray assumes, by his insipid disposition) catches his attention suddenly, hands scrambling to feel about around him for his own bag; nothing.

He must've left it where he was lying. Damn.

"Don't fucking touch it, there could be something inside! Lemme see it." The Michael throws his bags down in lieu of ripping the Englishman away from his backpack, much to his dismay, and bends down close to it; He's listening, quietly. Ray's suddenly aware of his gurgling stomach.

He's also aware that the Stooges' over there are about to go through his shit.

He steps up. Ray doesn't even have a damn gun on him, much less a weapon that'll get his bag back without a fuss.  "Hey man ---- .... whoa, whoa. _Chill_."

* * *

 

Ray's life has always been a series of muffled sounds, muted glances and snuffed out flames. Ray didn't mind it. He was used to the aphasic world he lived in, the dreary space of the in between, the blurred lines between his own life and the one he once held close to his chest.

Nothing prepared him for the clarity of the real world. There was no cloudy residue hiding the _Gavin & Michael_ from the _Ray_.

He pukes, and then promptly falls into it; there's nothing in his stomach, but the sudden dysphoria that takes over his head has him shaking and reaching for the ground to cling to the earth, to ground himself. Is this where he dies? It certainly feels like it. He's never felt the gentle hand of death before, but Ray's sure that this is what it should feel like, _what it should look like:_ too bright for words, as vivid as the arid desert at dusk and twice as hot.

As it turns out, that hand was not of the Reaper, but of the idiot with a thick gold chain around his neck, eyes wide and mouth down turned in a silent conversation that Ray struggled to follow. When did the world get as bright as it did?

"You alright, mate? Lookin' a bit green 'bout the gills, you are. Michael, look at 'im!"

"Jesus, man."  A snort, and then another hand at his shoulder, pulling Ray upright. "You look like shit, dude. How long have you been here?"

Even if he could speak, he doubts it'd make sense. Time wasn't a linear progression from cause to effect, nor was it a strict progression of an event in his life; so how long _had_ he been there? He felt like it had only been a few hours since his bike had ran out of gas, because he still see the bright skyline from behind them. His body says different.

His body aches, but it isn't unkind to him. Ray's used to a little wear and tear, it's nothing short of an expectation at this point, but he can't help the exhausted answer he gives, "Uh, --- " A pause. And then another attempt, followed by a burp. " --- ... like, a few days? I fell asleep. Bike kind of died on me."

"Well shit, buddy. Gavin, pack that shit up. I'll give Caleb a call, maybe he's got a bed open."

" ---- .... Y' reckon it'll be alrigh' if we just leave the stuff 'ere? I'll give Jack a call, she can come n' get me after." It's obvious that whatever is in the bag's they're coveting that it's pretty important, or at least something that need to be finished up in a timely manner. Had Ray not just knocked his face off he'd probably try and take one, just to quell his curiosity.

Ray's sudden and all encompassing annoyance takes his expression to that of someone who hasn't almost just starved, almost amused at it all. Gavin begins to drag the bags back to the warehouse door, hobbling on towards whatever vehicle awaited them outside. He's adverse to the entire idea of going anywhere that isn't his own choice, but he feels about ready to die outside some shitty city; so he cuts himself some slack, grabbing at the ground again in hopes of standing up.

Michael immediately tucks a hand under his arm and presses them both forward, none too gentle and none too hasty. Under his arm goes his backpack that they pick up in passing, dirt clinging to both his sweater and bag. He probably looks like a homeless dude.

Ray _is_ a homeless dude.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's a pretty short chapter. Planned on being longer but I'm running a little late today so I figured I'd cut it short! I wonder why Michael and Gavin are wiring up a warehouse ;)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray meets Trevor & Caleb. They run into a little trouble amongst themselves.  
> Jack makes an appearance.

 

To Ray, it seemed like two wind-blown angels had tumbled down from heaven and were moving towards him, an ugly little gurney following close behind. The figure of these angels now stood in momentary disorientation, reaching out with helpless arms towards one another with an affectionate ease, pushing and shoving, and then towards Gavin and Michael. They spoke sharply towards Curly ( _it seems Moe, here, is one of the bro's_ ) with twisted, formal grins, giving one another a series of delayed motions with their fingers.

Breathing sort of hurts. Each lungful of air is a ritual, a bargaining chip to whoever was listening to stop the achy little bite at his ribs. Ray silently watches on as the four of them converse loudly, mutely wishing they would _hurry up_ and just get him something to eat; Gavin had suggested they stop at Burger King. Michael suggested they just go ahead and dump Gavin right in a trash can if _he didn't keep his stupid mouth shut_ ;  Ray remembers laughing at that. Or maybe he tried to laugh at it.

Finding his footing his difficult when he's covered in his own vomit, but somehow he manages to pull himself from the car and right past the four idiots that had no intention of actually helping -- he assumes anyway. The Puerto Rican shifts his bag to pull it against his back again. It helps him find his equilibrium.

Ray feels ravenous. He's got both hands wrapped around the straps of his pack, chin tucked into his hoodie while stalking up the stairs cautiously.

"Oi --- he's gettin' away!"

Michael turns his head and hisses at Gavin with a shove to his chest, sputtering some insult that the latter clearly finds offensive.  "He's not a criminal, you jackass. Go n' help him! Jesus, Trevor: you're fucking useless. "

He's got to admit, however, that Curly's ugly honesty is something he finds comforting. Ray grasps the railing, giving himself a minute.

He feels weak. Something sharp & hot begins to grow inside his chest, crawling up his esophagus with an urgent need to make itself known, to be seen, _heard_. He's gotten extraordinarily good at hiding that need to make his words known, but something about being grabbed from behind has them spilling forth without his permission. "You sayin' all brown dudes are criminals, man?"

Sarcasm. _Great_.

Gavin reacts the way Ray expects him to: he recoils from his grip around his hip only to squawk wordless at him a few times, much to his own dismay. No words leave him, nothing _intelligible_ anyway, and much to his own surprise laughter rises up from behind him.

Those in their little white coats cuss and crow while they follow Ray back up into a high rise, tucking (what he assumes) a wad of cash into their wallets without much concern while Michael stays at the bottom of the steps with a cocky grin. And as much as he's had his fun poking at the Brit, he's glad Gavin doesn't take to following them inside either. It's already too loud, everything almost seems too much for the desert-dweller.

 

* * *

 

 

They ask questions he can't remember. There's a shimmery iridescence to his lies and a weight to the truth & each answer that leaves him is alarmingly thought-out and slow. Caleb, the kid that looks about Ray's age obviously doesn't believe a thing he's said so far. There's a deliberate silence in between the _scratch scratch **scratch**_ of a pen against paper, something that Ray tries his best to avoid while he strips himself of his hoodie and shirt.

"So --- ....you're not from Los Santos." Caleb sets his pad down in favor of letting Trevor take over, which has the kid a little weary; it's clear he's nervous as hell, both unsure if he should comment on the ugly scarring of Ray's abdomen or the unseemly way his ribs jut out over his stomach. Ray catches him staring. Ray stares until their eyes meet, but even then it's uncomfortable at best. Trevor is quick to glance away, guilty on all accounts but his own curiosity.

"Nope. Tried to pass through, but uh --- bike died. Couldn't find another tire." Ray begins to kick his ratty shoes off, watching as both men turn this way and that, readying their tools for the oncoming horror. He's always hated doctors. Death seems to surround the stark whiteness of the little room, as it always does. It follows. Wherever Ray seems to be it shows up not long after.

"Alright, well that kinda sucks. But the good news is that you aren't too far gone, we'll just start you on some liquids first." Trevor smiles like it's supposed to _comfort_ him. It feels awkward and staged, clearly imposed but utterly clueless.

He wants to tell him to piss off. He's been grasped at without a word, Trevor's cold hands finding their away around his elbow and a gloved hand wiping at the dirt right at the crook; it's clear he's surprised to find the amount of grime he's been collecting steadily, and he has to grab two or three more cotton swabs to thoroughly clean the area before it suits his fancy. Ray steadily glances at Caleb from his spot behind the idiot at his arm, chin raised and eyes cast down to gaze at them.

It hits him.

_Suddenly and loudly._

"Wait, wait ---- this ain't some shady back alley abortion clinic deal, right? This guy knows what he's doing? Dude --- " Ray jerks back violently away from his prying fingers, catching the shocked expression of Dumb & Dumber.  "Jesus, dude. Let _that_ guy do it, you're gonna fuckin' kill me!"

A sound of protest comes from Trevor, soon followed by a soft chuckle from Caleb. He's shrugging, already grabbing for gloves. "He's in his residency in pediatrics. It should be fine, but if you aren't comfortable-- "

Ray cuts him off, already at the ready. "It does, man. I just want to, like, _not die?_ Can we just get this over with? Hospitals aren't really my thing."

"Oh, this isn't a hospital. It's the Wilshore Tower. I mean, technically? I provide care for corporations that can't otherwise saunter into a hospital. Whether that be because of the fees, or if maybe --- " Caleb's bedside manner immediately relaxes Ray.

The Puerto Rican gets lost in the demeanor of the faux-doctor. He even moves to lie down when he's being hooked up to a bag, dutifully ignoring the prick and pull of the needle. A tired heaviness begins to spread through his shoulders and neck, soon clinging to his bones until he's fighting to keep his head up until he's left on his own; he can't sleep with them there. No, scratch that.

He can't sleep with Trevor there. Caleb's presence is light and quiet, feet shuffling about silently towards the end of his bed where he places a chart. Trevor glances over at Ray with a begrudging expression. He returns it with a snort, scrunching his nose and a cough that ends with two middle fingers up towards him childishly. Ray's too tired to laugh at the reaction he gets, but the amusement is there; he promises that.

Caleb assures them he'll be fine.

Ray tries to believe that. He hasn't been fine in a long while.

But that's just life.

 

* * *

 

Waking up anywhere outside his usual haunts is a peculiar feeling. He's unused to the bright and blinding light that shines through his window without apology, eventually it brings him to the shining conclusion that he should _probably_ get up to close the shitty blinds that most hospital-like settings usually have. Reality feels displaced, like he's stepped into some awkward soap drama he's seen on a tv somewhere in Illinois.

He's never actually been in a hospital so maybe the basis for comparison is a little bleak, but he supposes that the room he's in is close enough. The bed complains under him when he begins to shuffle towards the edge, met with a bright array of food on a little tray; it sits hopefully on his bedside table, lingering. It seems awfully suspicious. Food isn't just free, right?

He's aware that the jell-o would probably taste best but he goes for the pre-wrapped sandwich instead and hops from the bed to grab his bag; Ray stuffs it inside, alongside the apple and orange juice on the tray too, leaving a cold bowl of broth and some tea. That ratty little pack is zipped shut again, shoved under the bed with his unkempt feet. And now that he thinks about it..... the rest of his clothes were missing too. Only his shoes and jeans remained in a pile, which suddenly makes him feel very naked and vulnerable.

It's incredibly disarming to realize how much better he's feeling. The needle's not in his arm but the pain lingers, dragging itself slowly behind him as he moves to reach for the blinds, groaning under his own lack of strength. It's a fucking drag is what it is, he muses silently.

Ray isn't terribly confident in his ability to stay in that little room for more than the few hours it takes to sleep his exhaustion off, and maybe that's a good thing. Safer, even. He's gazing out the window, face pressed through the blinds and against the window as close as he's able to without his glasses fogging up on him. The high rise is sorely taller than he's expected, bringing him higher than he's ever been in his entire life (that is, if you count the time he smoked an ounce of the dankest weed he's ever bought in just a few hours. He was pretty sure he was about to die, then.). It's not entirely awful.

It makes him feel tall (and with _his_ height,  that wasn't such a bad thing).

Ray hears the door open before he's fully able to grasp the instinct to turn around. He really needs to stop letting people sneak up on him.

"So did you have another question or did you wanna, like, blow me?"  The question leaves him bitterly and without pause,  words falling jumbled from his mouth like rotting teeth punched from his giggling maw.

To his own surprise, it's a bigger voice that greets him,  "At least buy me a drink first, kid."  Feminine at best, but he knows there's something underlying it. Amusement, maybe. Sarcasm?

Ray does his best to mask his surprise. The woman he turns to is huge. _And red_.  She's in a gaudy floral blouse and the tightest striped shorts Ray's ever seen and he's sure the demure grin she wears is, well, she knows exactly what she does. Does to Ray, maybe. Or men, in general.

"You're the kid Michael picked outta the desert, huh?" Red softly closes the door behind her.

It feels final, somehow. Like Ray loses whatever he's been holding close to his chest for the past few years, but he can't complain. Not that he'd want to,  it isn't a feeling of being cornered by the woman;  A feeling of familiarity rather.

"Uh, ...yeah. Ray." 

"My names Jack. I'm with Michael."

"Like his girlfriend, or somethin'?" Huh. Ray raises his eyebrows and pushes his glasses back up on his face.

"Well, sure. His girlfriend." Amusement teases the corner of her pretty mouth. He tried not to think about that mouth too much. "He and I are sort of building a project out there, so we've been housing a little of our equipment out there.  I thought I'd come n' check out who they dug up, I see Caleb n' Trevor have got you stabilized. Which is good. But it isn't free."

_Oh_. Oh, now he sees. The gentle tilt of her head makes Ray's head spin, and it's not long before he realizes that she's pinned him. 

This gorgeous, tall, beast of a woman isn't who he thought she was and the kid sighs. 

This is where a favor ends and business starts.

_This is where Ray's begins to get complicated._

 

 

 

 


End file.
